


A Long Road

by j3ssential



Category: Original Work
Genre: Birth, Depression, Drugs, Giving Birth, Grief/Mourning, Labor and Delivery, Motherhood, Nobility, References to Depression, References to Drugs, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22553410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j3ssential/pseuds/j3ssential
Kudos: 6





	A Long Road

Cyaera strained, sweat rolling down her face as she pushed, the pain pushing away the nausea momentarily. The cloying smell of perfume mingled with the body odors of the mass of people crowded into the room, and together with the heat they trapped, it was enough to turn anyone’s stomach. The pain passed, and a midwife drew a damp cloth over Cyaera’s forehead, which she turned into, gratefully, doing her best to ignore her audience. Her breath was ragged, as she was entering her second half-day of labor, but the midwife had assured her she was finally close--the child was crowning. Cyaera didn’t believe the woman until the courtiers had begun to filter in; they never had the patience to wait for long. They were only there for the spectacle.

She didn’t have long to relax as the next wave of her belly crested and hardened. A groan escaped from her, causing a stir among the assembled nobility at her lack of decorum. She gritted her teeth, pushing until she felt like screaming, until she felt sure she would split apart. She wished she could ask what stage she was in, how far out the child was, anything, but she knew they wouldn’t tell her. It was too unseemly a thing for a genteel woman of nobility to discuss. Never mind that she’d delivered more children than all of the women in the room had born, never mind that she had reattached hands, treated burn wounds, even conducted autopsies. 

But then, no. Someone else did that. Cyaera sat meekly and bore children for the Crown. Cyaera spread her legs first for the pretentious, vain, spoiled princeling; then she obediently spread her legs to birth his child for his court to see.

Not her child. It would never be hers. It belonged to the Crown.

And the Crown’s child slid out of her in a great rush to a gentle smattering of applause from the assembled nobility who then covered their noses in fans and handkerchiefs and murmured amongst themselves as they made their way out.  
Cyaera collapsed in on herself, her eyes drawn like a magnet to the child the midwife never even bothered to show her. The midwife cooed as she wiped it down, bundling it up before trundling out of the room to ferry it to it’s father.

She never even told Cyaera if it was a boy or a girl.

Cyaera tried not to think about it, like she had tried not to grow attached to the tiny fluttering bump that had taken up residence under her heart the last two years. She told herself it was just the pain as the apprentice midwife palpated her abdomen, pushing out the afterbirth. It wasn’t grief. Who wouldn’t cry when her body had been called upon to perform in an extreme?

But it was like a blackness, a deep ache spreading from the hollow center where the flutter was no longer. She maintained her composure until the final maid left the room, the soiled sheets going with her, before she turned, curling in on herself, shaking with repressed sobs.

It wasn’t her child. It was never going to be her child. She was merely a vessel for keeping the Blood pure, for protecting the Royal line. She’d only imagined the thick black curls on the head of the babe. The deep ache in the very core of her being was temporary, just like the tearing and blood in her lower regions. She would heal.

But she felt drained. She felt empty and hopeless and black. She cried so long she lost the energy to sob, unmoving but for the tears flowing down her face. She tried very hard not to think, but her mind kept conjuring images of a black-haired child in a dainty golden crown, only ever in glimpses, never getting to be a child, never getting to be a _person._ They would be raised by an army of tutors and governesses and no love whatsoever. They would be King, or married to an ally; they did not get parents.

She could not bear it. She could not stand to walk through the halls of this bleak, stern, crowded castle, hearing the voice of her own child, glimpsing it. She could not bear to hear the King and Queen and advisors start their endless litany of encouragement to have a spare, or even worse, an heir if the child was a girl. She could not take the man who called himself her husband pawing after her again, smelling of whores even on the nights they were to attempt to conceive, of having to take the potions against syphilis and the underclap and the various things he brought to their marital bed because he could not be bothered to treat it or take precautions.

She didn’t know when she stood--in itself a miracle, so soon after delivery--but she suddenly found herself staring out the enormous windows of her bedroom, at the distant mountains that marked the edge of the kingdom.

Something fierce,and wild, and almost violent rose up in her. She wasn’t going to stay here. She wasn’t going to continue staying Cyaera. It had felt like an ill-fitting glove since she first slipped free of her noble bonds and apprenticed at the royal apothecary. A small voice in the back of her head whispered, “ _It can’t hurt if you’re angry._ ”

She ignored it, and she ignored too the pain as she bent to gather a bag.

She was headed for somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  
  
  
  
  


Her anger protected her only until the first night she slept. In her “extracurricular” activities, she had spent more and more time in progressively more harsh and sparse environments, so the lack of luxury was more of a respite than anything else, but when she closed her eyes, sleep ran, and in it’s place, the deep ache of loss settled. Grief suffused her limbs with langour, and try as she might, she ended up curled around the void of her stomach, trying not to think of a child with ink-black hair, so uncommon amongst highborn, much less nobility. Of the cruel comments that hair would provoke, that she had endured in multitudes over the years. Her heart ached as though it had been ripped from her chest, and nothing she could do would distract from the pain. Eventually, she gave up, and got up.

When the wife of the farmer she was travelling with woke up, she was watching the sunrise, her face impassive. By the time they reached the small town they were travelling to, she could barely remain upright. She mumbled an incoherent expression of gratitude to the farmer and his family before stumbling into the first tavern she found, fumbling an entire golden coin onto the counter, and barely making it to the room she rented. She expected to fall unconscious as soon as she collapsed on the filthy straw pallet, but she remained painfully conscious. Tears leaked slowly from her eyes as she clutched her arms around herself, willing herself to sleep.

She’d hadn’t slept a single moment since the child had left her body. “ _Your child._ ” whispered a voice in the back of her head.

She dismissed it violently, jerking herself upright, movements jerky and drunken with sleep deprivation. She dragged herself down to the common area of the tavern, a dark, scummy place, filled to the brim with characters of ill-repute, some eyeing her like a pickpocket eyes a full coinpurse. She didn’t have the energy to care, and parked herself at a cramped table in the corner. It wasn’t long until such a shady figure approached her, leering at her with filthy, crooked teeth. “Hello sweetmeat, you look like you and I could have a good time together.”  
Cyaera said nothing, staring at him balefully, which he took, incorrectly, as a sign of encouragement, sitting close to her. The gnome reached out to put a gnarled hand posessively on her knee, but before the message could make it sleep-deprived slow circuit to her brain, a shadow fell over them both. They both looked up--Cyaera much quicker than the handsy gnome, but the same sight greeted them: a similarly filthy and malnourished but far more scarred and dangerous looking tall human with an unkempt air speared him with a muddled glare. The gnome mumbled to himself angrily, but stood, scuttling off into the gloom on the other side of the crowded common room. The tall man took his place, eyeing Cyaera speculatively. She watched him silently while he ruffled through the ratty duster he wore.

“Figured I’d spare you Igrim. You look like you’ve been through enough.” He dipped his head at her, his hands operating a compact case with surprisingly nimble fingers. “M’name’s Cassex, but I’m guessing you don’t care.”  
He took her silent stare as a sign of assent, laying out what appeared to be a small, one person tea set.  
Cyaera blinked at it, her muddled brain trying to make sense of what she was seeing. The man chuckled thickly, producing a sachet of dense dried petals with the skill of a trained magician, lifting it to his nose and inhaling deeply. "Still fresh enough to get the job done." Even through her stupor, she recognized the petals. Poppy. She had used a sachet just like that to make poppy tea to treat her patients with more severe pain. To treat patients with severe nightmares. It was said to induce a dreamless sleep.

It felt as though her world tilted on it's axis, and narrowed to the sachet in the mans' hand. She neither saw nor would have cared about the predatory smile spreading slowly over Cassex' face as he saw her focus. "So you know what it is, then? Aye, thought you might. I think we can be great friends, you and I."

Not an hour later she was finally fading into unconsciousness on the squalid, damp pallet the tavern called a mattress, a languid smile spreading across her face. She could feel neither physical nor emotional pain in the place she was in. And she would do anything to stay there.


End file.
